As he
walked home, the thoughts of this excursion out of the safe
places of life into the wild and arduous, stirred and
struggled in his imagination with the image of Miss Mackenzie
- incongruous and yet kindred thoughts, for did not each
imply unusual tightening of the pegs of resolution? did not
each woo him forth and warn him back again into himself?
Between these two considerations, at least, he was more than
usually moved; and when he got to Randolph Crescent, he quite
forgot the four hundred pounds in the inner pocket of his
greatcoat, hung up the coat, with its rich freight, upon his
particular pin of the hatstand; and in the very action sealed
his doom.
CHAPTER II - IN WHICH JOHN REAPS THE WHIRLWIND
ABOUT half-past ten it was John's brave good fortune to offer
his arm to Miss Mackenzie, and escort her home. The night
was chill and starry; all the way eastward the trees of the
different gardens rustled and looked black. Up the stone
gully of Leith Walk, when they came to cross it, the breeze
made a rush and set the flames of the street-lamps quavering;
and when at last they had mounted to the Royal Terrace, where
Captain Mackenzie lived, a great salt freshness came in their
faces from the sea. These phases of the walk remained
written on John's memory, each emphasised by the touch of
that light hand on his arm; and behind all these aspects of
the nocturnal city he saw, in his mind's-eye, a picture of
the lighted drawing-room at home where he had sat talking
with Flora; and his father, from the other end, had looked on
with a kind and ironical smile.
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